MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 177 



" In the course of his Presidential Address to the zoological section at the 

 recent Cambridge meeting of the British Association, Mr. Bateaon took occasion 

 to emphasize the supreme importance of a thorough investigation of all the 

 phenomena connected with the breeding of animals as affording the chief clue 

 which is likely to explain the complex problems of heredity and evolution. He 

 compared, indeed, the breeding-pen in its importance to zoology to the test-tube 

 in chemistry, and remarked that every variation from type is due to a patho- 

 logical peculiarity. Although these remarks referred in the main to the case 

 of domesticated animals, or of wild animals kept in captivity, it is manifest that, 

 from the standpoint of the evolutionist, it is of scarcely less importance that we 

 should possess accurate and trustworthy information with regard to the varia- 

 tion produced in the breeding seasons of wild animals by climate, station, and 

 environment generally. For it is quite evident that if a species breeds in one 

 district at a certain time of the year, and some months earlier or later in a 

 second district, we have, ipso facto, a pronounced element in favour of variation 

 in its offspring, and thus a valid cause for the eventual production of a new 

 variety or species. As a well-known investigator of this subject has recently 

 pointed out to me, our knowledge of the breeding seasons of big game in general 

 is in an exceedingly unsatisfactory and crude condition ; so imperfect, indeed, 

 as to be practically useless for the purposes of exact study. Take, for instance, 

 such well-known works as Blanford's Mammals of India and the Great and 

 Small Game of Africa, published by Rowland Ward, and edited by Mr. Bryden, 

 and the unsatisfactory state of our information on this subject will be at once 

 apparent. Jn the former work, for instance, we find the oft-repeated statement 

 that the breeding time of a particular species is " about " such and such a month ; 

 while in the case of such a well-known animal as the Himalayan serow we find 

 the statement that whereas, according to Hodgson, a single young one is born 

 in September or October, Adams gives the spring as the time when the fawns 

 come into the world. Such statements (though no fault, be it observed, on the 

 part of the author of the invaluable works in question) are, of course, abso- 

 lutely useless for any generalisations with regard to the breeding seasons of 

 groups of animals. Take, again, the case of the sambar deer, in which, as stated 

 in Mr. Blanford's volume, doubt still prevails with regard to the dates of the 

 breeding season and of the shedding of the antlers, both of which are evidently 

 correlated. In peninsular India, for instance, the stags are said to rut in 

 October and November, but in the Himalayas not till the spring, whereas the 

 antlers are reported to be usually dropped in March in the one area and in 

 April in the other. Obviously there is something wrong in this. In addition 

 there is the well ascertained fact that some stags do not shed their antlers at 

 the usual time, while some are stated to retain them for more than one season. 

 The probability would seem to be that in the plains the sambar has two breed- 

 ing seasons, and that stags born at one season shed their antlers and breed at 

 a different time of year from those which are produced at the opposite season. 

 All this requires, however, to be ascertained by careful and accurate observa- 

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